Based on a true story, the film begins in India, where we meet Ramanujan (played by Dev Patel) a poor, but brilliant, intuitive mathematician. His scribbled equations ultimately earn him an invitation to Cambridge, where the onslaught of WWI is edging ever closer to campus. Themes of class and colonial conflict, intuitive and rational knowledge – set amid the growth of military violence – are brilliantly portrayed through the friendship of Ramanujan and his mentor, G.H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons). Patel and Irons capture intellectual and historical change in intimate scenes of personal growth.